The Hindu Thread

A hotel owner in the Indian state of Rajasthan has expressed his frustration over the fact that his hotel has been closed for weeks over false accusations that it had served beef on the premises.

Police on Tuesday said forensic tests on meat seized from the Hayat Rabbani hotel in March showed it was definitely not beef, but chicken, the Hindustan Times reported.

Cows are revered as sacred animals among India's Hindus, and there are strict laws on their slaughter and consumption in several parts of the country, including Rajasthan.

"From the very first day, I have been saying that it was chicken but no one from the administration listened to me," hotel owner Naeem Rabbani told the paper. "The report confirms all allegations levelled on us were false."

The hotel was closed after a group of "cow vigilantes" protested in front of it for hours in March, chanting nationalist slogans.

The Indian Express website cited a member of the group saying they had gathered there after reading about rumours of a beef party at the hotel on WhatsApp, allegedly sent by Jaipur's mayor. ...

I cannot understand the hypocrisy of recent radical "cow protection". Anyone who ever traveled in India (and Nepal), must have seen the suffering of countless street cows. Who will protect them? They do not need to be protected from Muslims only, but from the very Hindus who made them homeless. They had been born in human inhabited places, and when kicked out to the street, they keep staying among people, because this is what they feel safe and normal, even if they could have fresh grass in rural areas and the nature (yet, with the dangers from wild animals like tigers and jackals!). So they prefer to eat plastic and paper in the street rubbish of cities, with the occasional thrown out rubbish from vegetable shops, for that fake "protection" that the dusty roads and dangerous traffic offer them.

Deeply believing Hindus are quite often trying to find excuses, why did they "have to" throw out the few weeks old baby bulls or old cows who cannot give any more milk..."We cannot afford to keep, we are poor" I heard most of the time. "We have given our old cow to the temple, to the gods" I heard another. In reality, only young (female) cows and in certain areas one or two working oxen are kept by people, young bulls and old cows are thrown out mercilessly to the streets! This is the reality of the holy lands of India and Nepal, and I think first this shameful situation should be changed, before blaming all on the Muslims.

Owners go into such extremes that they even hire trucks to bring the unwanted cows (known for their perfect navigation ability) to a faraway jungle and there they throw them out, so that they cannot find the way "home" anymore. I have seen countless wandering lonely bull babies in deep jungles along the highways or onmy own treks, without any people or herd. It is clear: sooner or later they will be attacked and eaten by tigers or die from hunger. as many such small bulls are even not able to digest grass, they need mother's milk...

This cruelty to the "holy cow" broke my heart in holy India and holy Nepal. Once I saw a baby bull fallen to the freezing water of a canal in a village in Uttar Pradesh, but no one cared about it. Finally I mobilized five-six men to help me pull him out with ropes. But what next? A traveler, where can I find a new home for the bull? Locals told me not to bring it to so called "cow shelters" (Gaushala) because many times the Hindu shelter workers secretly sell cows to Muslim butchers. I was pulling the bull on a rope from house to house, but everyone refused it. Animals in holy lands are apparently kept only as utility objects, not as pets for love and care... It is also hard work to cut grass or buy straw for them.

So finally, as I myself had nowhere to keep him, I brought him near a river and green meadow, in the hope that at least he could find food and water there. Sooner or later he would be killed by a Muslim or a wild dog.

Street cows in India and Nepal do not have any shelter to hide during the wild monsoon rains, hailstorms, too hot and too cold weather. I saw how a herd of bulls that became friends and kept together, tried desperately to hide under the roofs of restaurants near a temple, during a strong downpour of rain. Owners had thrown stones and beating them with sticks to chase them away...

So I would accept if the recent hysteria about "protecting cows" was sincere and if Hindus were much better than Muslims in behaving to them. But this is just not true. How many street cows die from eating plastic bags, which remind them of nutritious massive leaves? I have seen them with swollen bellies lying dead in the streets. Their suffering is unspeakable, while kicked out and becoming a nuisance in India's and Nepal's cities. Sometimes I am thinking, what is more cruel, to end their suffering by a butcher, or see them strolling hopeless and hated and chased by the very Hindus who are supposed to protect them...?

Times are tough for India’s monument to love. Air pollution is turning its marble surface yellow. Restoration work is obscuring its famous minarets. Tens of millions of tourists still flock to Agra each year, but numbers are reportedly waning.

Critics of the Taj Mahal are also growing increasingly bold. In past months, religious nationalists in the Hindu-majority country have stepped up a campaign to push the four-century-old Mughal monument to the margins of Indian history. One legislator recently kicked up a national storm when he labelled the tomb “a blot”.
Resentment at the fact the country’s most recognisable monument was built by a Muslim emperor has always existed on the fringes of the Hindu right. But those fringes have never been so powerful.
Attacks on the monument, a lifeline for its home state of Uttar Pradesh, have grown so loud that last week the state chief minister – himself a critic of the Taj – was forced into “a day-long exercise in damage control”, one newspaper said.Yogi Adityanath paid an elaborate official visit to Agra on Thursday to issue assurances that the Taj was a “unique gem” that his government was committed to protect.

Click to expand...

More at the link.

There is shades of wanting to rewrite history in there with comments like

“Taj Mahal should have no place in Indian history,” he said, claiming Shah Jahan, the emperor who built the mausoleum for his deceased wife, had “wanted to wipe out Hindus”.
“If these people are part of our history, then it is very sad and we will change this history,” he added.